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NFL offseason, Draft and 2019/2020 season.

Tagovailoa helicoptered out of Starkville to Birmingham with what seems like a hip fracture. Tanking for Tua not seeming so smart now (although I suspect Burrow is going to make a very good pro).

I heard the injury compared to the type of injury that ultimately sidelined Bo Jackson. :(
 
Heard the other day the Chargers were a viable candidate to move to London now.

Can not be any worse than being in LA, where they have no business being, they play at the same stadium as the LA Galaxy for goodness sake, and apparently they regularly play the opposing teams them music at the games as the home team fans are often the minority.
Heard the same although it was dampened by a pundit as potentially London being dangled as a bargaining chip to get leverage.

These west coast Cali teams seem to move around like a game of musical chairs bar the 49ers.

It appears London is favoured by the NFL but not by expansion, only by franchise relocation. A team like the Jags or Chargers would be good. Lesser known, supported teams in UK. Gives them a chance to bed down a huge fan base potentially.
 
I don't see how a London team operates. Every team right now gets a bye week after playing in London. How would that work if a team had to play eight games there? There are no bye weeks the first four weeks of the season, so would they have to play four away games to start every season? The organisation would still have to maintain a US base for collegiate scouting and workouts. Players who come to London bitch about the overseas tax rule athletes are subject to. Unless the UK government came to some arrangement, the tax situation would make London less attractive to free agents than Cincinnati. And all the legislative stuff around the CBA and how the organisation itself would pay tax, and where? Crazy. Not that LA doesn't have its problems.

The Chargers had problems in SD with crowds too, especially against teams with traditional traveling fans like Pittsburgh and Kansas. It's part of why they moved. They'll be in the Hollywood Park stadium with the Rams when it opens. LA is a fickle sports town, though. The Rams used to sell the Coliseum out when they were there before—when they were winning. Two bad seasons and their attendances dropped badly and that was the start of the slope that led to St Louis.

USC and UCLA, who are both currently not fielding the greatest teams in the histories of either program, are experiencing historically low average attendances (I also wonder if the Rams arriving with a promising side has hurt them both). LA has always struck me as a TV city. Before the blackout, the Chargers and/or broadcasters used to have to buy up tickets in bulk regularly to avoid losing local or secondary SOCAL TV markets on home games. I'm not sure moving into their number one market helped them any. Moving to London certainly won't.
 
Baltimore put an ass whipping on H-Town.

John Harbough is a really under rated coach, right behind Bellicheck as best in the league.
What I love about Harbaugh is he totally reshaped the team around Lamar. Dumped a SB winning QB and razed the team to the ground. Didn't insist on using his own favoured systems. Looked at Jackson, thought about what he'd need to win now playing the way he likes to play, and then built him that team. Kind of like the way Carroll cut the Seattle team to fit Wilson, letting him win early in his career.

Still wince every time I see Jackson dance down the field, mind. I mean, it's amazing to watch, but you only have to look on the sidelines to see what can happen: RG3. That said, I think Jackson picks his plays better and is less fragile.
 
What I love about Harbaugh is he totally reshaped the team around Lamar. Dumped a SB winning QB and razed the team to the ground. Didn't insist on using his own favoured systems. Looked at Jackson, thought about what he'd need to win now playing the way he likes to play, and then built him that team. Kind of like the way Carroll cut the Seattle team to fit Wilson, letting him win early in his career.

Still wince every time I see Jackson dance down the field, mind. I mean, it's amazing to watch, but you only have to look on the sidelines to see what can happen: RG3. That said, I think Jackson picks his plays better and is less fragile.

Yep, all that is true.

Plus he won a Super Bowl with Joe Flacco.

Even if Jackson lasts only a few flashy years, I would fully expect and trust Harbaugh to build the team back up with someone else.
 
On the topic of a London team, I had not really thought about the financial ramifications of it. But I suspect these things can be worked out a lot easier than not if all parties are on board.

You see the potential for this in American sports, but states with no state income tax (Texas, Illinois) are not any more attractive than states that gouge you (CA, NY), in fact even less so, as the cities in CA and NY are the difference.

Would this rational hold for the circumstances around London? They could, players playing for the London franchise would essentially be on the national team of England, they would have marketing and merchandise potential that players on US teams would not. Maybe.

I also suspect Mexico City will be clamoring for a team as well. Move Jax to London and the Chargers to Mexico City.
 
If London players remained US citizens and taxpayers, they could end up paying almost 60% tax on their home games under the current system.

The Jaguar's lease in Jacksonville has some pretty fucking hefty break penalties. Like, in the region of $100m if they leave before 2030. Khan ain't doing that in a hurry. Even when he was looking at buying Wembley, the talk was of 4 home games there a year, which he was hoping to get by Jacksonville. The city spend like $150m knocking down the old Gator Bowl and building the new stadium for the Jags, and paid for two thirds of the more recent $60m renovations. They're not going to be amenable to the team leaving unless someone gets a fat cheque book out.

I'm sceptical about support for a London team. They get decent crowds at the games there now, but everyone turns up wearing their own team's jersey. It's like an NFL-wide event. The atmosphere, in terms of cheering for the supposed home side, is usually lousy. And if a team permanently shacked up at, say, the new Spurs stadium, they'd immediate alienate a lot of local support who don't follow Spurs. I've been to a bunch of the Wembley games, but I don't know anyone who would consider actually supporting a London franchise. It would take years to built a proper following, if it was ever possible. And the expansion teams have been less than successful when based inside the US anyway. The Panthers are the only ones who have been good at all, with the Delhomme team and the Cam team. The Ravens aren't really an expansion side as Art Modell just moved an existing franchise and pretended it was new (I wonder how things might have gone if the Browns had stayed in Cleveland and still taken Ogden and Lewis in the draft...). The other two have been largely disappointing. And Jacksonville would be a failed expansion team moving to a different continent. They'd lose bad and often and forever and the whole thing would stink. Which wouldn't really make things any worse, I suppose.
 
Mike Mcarthy to the Cowboys. Interesting to see how this will pan out. He cannot be as bad as Garrett.
 
Titans picking up steam.

I thought they'd beat the Ravens ... it will be really interesting to see if Lamar Jackson can have such a great season next year as every team will be working to stop him and have a full season of tape and offseason to plan.

I think if Russ n' co beats the Pack, we'll have a Seattle-Tennessee SB
 
I thought they'd beat the Ravens ... it will be really interesting to see if Lamar Jackson can have such a great season next year as every team will be working to stop him and have a full season of tape and offseason to plan.

I think if Russ n' co beats the Pack, we'll have a Seattle-Tennessee SB

Jackson looked a bit lost last night when they were chasing the game. They’ve been so dominant through the season and when it mattered they looked shellshocked.

Credit to the Titans, they were very good.
 
KC 28-24 ... insane ... Mahomes with 4 TD passes in 2nd quarter, which has tied the record set by Dougie Williams in the Super bOwl in the late 80s (I think 1988? The TimmY Smith SB)
 
Both teams evenly matched. The bookies have 49ers +1.5 points on spread.

Could be down to who handles the pressure and the weight of expectation on them. Chiefs not been to a bowl since IV in 71, their only victory. 49ers not won one since 94 although they got there in 2012.

For me the pressure is on Chiefs, they've been to the playoffs for at least last 5 seasons on the back of division wins. They've looked the team to beat in the AFC several times in past few years - especially last couple of years only to blow it. They looked like they'd blow it again at 24-0 at home to Texans and if the Texans hadn't made inexplicable play call blunders on 2 4th down plays while they were on top, then I don't think the Chiefs would've recovered. Texans chose field goal at 4th and inches around the 20 yard line. But on 4th and long at midfield they chose to go for it instead of punting and putting Chiefs deep in own territory and making them drive the field at a point when they could barely make any offensive plays.

My head says Chiefs. My heart says 49ers.
 
Please God, please, let it be the Chiefs. Or the Chefs as I always think of them, cause of this classic commercial.

 
Just saw this image taken at halftime of SB I. Pretty cool.

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Yeah, Reid deserved it, and after all the shit with his kid some years ago too, seems like a very well liked guy
 
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